I
have seen this phenomenon on the Andes, almost under the equator, at an
elevation of 15,920 feet, and in Northern Asia, in the plains of
Krasnojarski, south of Buchtarminsk, so similarly developed, that we must
regard the influences producing it as very widely distributed, and as
depending on general natural forces. See the important observations of
Kamtz ('Vorlesungen uber Meteorologie', 1840, s. 146), and the more recent
ones of Martins and Bravais ('Meteorologie', 1843, p. 117). In south polar
bands, composed of very delicate clouds, observed by Arqago at Paris on the
23d of June, 1844, dark rays shot upward from an arch running east and west.
We have already made mention of black rays, resembling dark smoke, as
occurring in brilliant nocturnal northern lights.
p 198
Southern lights have often been seen in England by the intelligent and
indefatigable observer Dalton and northern lights have been observed in the
southern hemisphere as far as 45 degrees latitude (as on the 14th of
January, 1831). On occasions that are by no means of rare occurrence, the
equilibrium at both poles has been simultaneously disturbed. I have
discovered with certainty that northern polar lights have been seen within
the tropics in Mexico and Peru.
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